Related

For a good long while, Mitt Romney was the luckiest man in politics. He joined the 2012 race as the default Republican front runner after more-formidable challengers chose not to run. His declared rivals were at turns ineffectual (Tim Pawlenty), ridiculous (Herman Cain) or self-destructive (Newt Gingrich) — granting Romney a fairly easy, if occasionally fraught, path to the nomination. An economic recovery that might have made challenging Barack Obama pointless never materialized. For a time, you might say, all the trees seemed to be the right height. As Romney wrapped up his primary campaign, the conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer, skeptical of Romney’s innate abilities, urged the would-be nominee to “pray for yet more luck, the quality Napoleon famously valued in his generals above all others.”

More recently, however, Romney’s luck has turned. His campaign has been star-crossed, veering from one minor disaster to another. The latest example is the emergence of Romney’s covertly recorded observation at a Florida fundraiser that the 47% of Americans who pay no federal income taxes will never vote for him because they “believe they are victims” entitled to endless government support and, by the way, will never “take personal responsibility and care for their lives.” Not to generalize or anything. This, just days after Romney’s rash statement late on the night of Sept. 11 suggesting that the Obama Administration sympathized with the violent mobs in Cairo and Benghazi. (This Pew poll tells the story of how that went over.)

Before that, there was a convention to forget: Clint Eastwood vs. an empty chair. Romney’s failure to mention Afghanistan. And the way the Democrats’ big speakers (Bill Clinton, Michelle Obama) outshone the GOP’s ho-hums (Marco Rubio) and flops (Chris Christie).

Before that was a summer of woe: Democrats murdered Romney in the free media wars that establish the campaign’s narrative. They skillfully dribbled factoids about Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital on liberal blogs, chum that successfully drew the big-media sharks. Senate majority leader Harry Reid mounted an insidiously effective innuendo campaign in which he repeated unproven allegations that Romney hadn’t paid any income taxes for a decade. Someone even alerted the Washington Post to Romney’s boyhood bullying.

And let’s not forget some other ignoble moments. Like Romney’s putatively statesmanlike overseas trip that became a media circus. Or the stunning Supreme Court ruling that upheld Obamacare, undermining an important Romney line of attack (and throwing his campaign into confusion about how to respond). Or the general-election opening “Etch A Sketch” moment.

And now the leaked video, with its tone of contempt for nearly half of the country, whose creator remains unknown.

Conservatives will complain, not entirely without merit, that many of these episodes were overblown, whipped into a froth by a “gotcha” press corps that finds Romney unlovable or even ridiculous. It’s also true that Obama’s team has stepped in it more than once. (“You didn’t build that”; the over-reaching super-PAC ad effectively practically accusing Romney of manslaughter.)

But the fact is that Romney’s luck ran out long ago. And his unluckiness has revealed his limitations as a presidential candidate (and those of his campaign team). Romney’s fortunes may turn again. But for now, more than a few Republicans are wondering whether his nomination was their party’s rotten luck.

Michael Crowley forgot to mention one of the most inept first debate performances by an incumbent president in a long time. That was a sroke of good fortune that turned around Romney's faltering campaign.

Had Obama even showed up - clearly his mind was with his "Sweetie" on their 20th wedding anniversary - Romney would never have gained momentum.

@ClaritaValle All managed health care entities determine exactly the treatments and benefits received by their subscribers. This is very old news. If someone demands a specific treatment and a healthcare professional determines it is unwarranted, an elective, or is plainly outside the scope of the plan, the procedure can be, and usually is, denied. So what? If the patient or subscriber still wants the treatment, that person can find a private practitioner and pay cash for the procedure. If they don't have the money, they don't have the procedure until they are able to prove the life-or-death necessity to their carrier. This has been going on since the dawn of health care insurance coverage, often with bad results. The tragedy of our healthcare is multifold. A few short examples: 1) It is very expensive (the insurance and the care), 2) Not all Americans can afford coverage, 3) Many Americans who have insurance, face a medical crisis, find the insurance has limitations, and ultimately end up in bankruptcy, often loosing their homes, jobs, vehicles. This does not speak well of the third most populated country in the world and one of the wealthiest. We pay some of the lowest mean personal income tax in the developed world and still we have citizens falling, not just through the cracks, but through huge gaping holes.There are state and federal banking regulations, as well as privacy laws, in place to prevent anyone from accessing bank accounts without proper authorization. If a person receives a direct deposit from SDI or Social Security, for example, then either could be construed as direct, electronic access to your bank account. That's been going on for years and predates the current administration. Nothing new there. But your statement that it is linked to the "implanted chip" is ludicrous. What "implanted chip" are you talking about? And the CIA? What is that all about? I could better understand had you said the FBI, but the CIA? The PATRIOT Act, originally passed with an overwhelming majority vote during the Bush administration, opened Pandora's box for infringement of citizens' freedoms. Thank the members of the U.S. Congress for that. Twice.It is almost impossible to address your comment about the president being an enemy of our freedoms. I am baffled by your statement.Taking an American civics class is a great way to gain a better understanding of the U.S. government. So is researching questionable statements and theories you may hear or read for the context in which they were made and the intent of the originator. Generally, comments that are sensationalized are taken out of context or are being used as scare tactics to sway the less informed.

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell endorses Obama for second term:

Colin Powell, a longtime Republican criticized Romney's foreign policy as inconsistent and questioned the former Massachusetts governor's ability to tackle the deficit and looming defense cuts. He’s sticking with President Barack Obama in this year's election. He tells ‘CBS This Morning’ he respects Mitt Romney but thinks he's been vague on many issues"I'm not quite sure which Governor Romney we'd be getting with respect to foreign policy," Powell said, calling Romney's foreign policy "a moving target."As for the U.S. budget, he added: "It's essentially let's cut taxes and compensate for that with other things, but that compensation does not cover all the cuts intended or the expenses associated with defense."Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said her impression after attending a recent Mitt Romney speech is that "there's just nothing going on" with the Republican presidential nominee. She said his understanding of foreign policy not only lacks depth but diminishes U.S. standing abroad.http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/30/14161885-madeleine-albright-theres-just-nothing-going-on-with-romney?lite

@AlMount In no way does my comment diminish the tragedy that occurred in Libya; however, we have lost many people at our embassies around the world. In 1998, there were approximately 230 people killed and thousands injured at our Kenyan and Tanzanian embassies when they were hit by bomb within seconds of each other. As I recall, about a dozen of the dead were Americans.

Customarily, it's the responsibility of the host country to protect the perimeter of the embassies.

I am a single mother of three; and appauled at Mitt's comment that women should get married if they want to have children. I was married at the age of 19 and began to have children after 4 years of marriage. My x-husband was in the military and after the third child he became abusive. In short I feel like Mitt is some what of a cumunist and out of touch with regular people.

Christ, really? This is supposed to be "TIME" magazine. I used to rely on it for good news coverage and full circle analysis and commentary. Now we just get one sided, short sighted, misguided sophomoric drivel like this. Hey TIME, you wonder why your subscriptions are falling faster than Baumgartner through the stratosphere?..This is why....and unlike Felix, you don't have a parachute.

Mitt Romney is far more qualified to be President when compared to Obama when he took office. He had never run a business, never truly led people, was a known associate of very radical and frankly dangerous people who had done physical harm to others. I'd dare say that he has paid more in taxes in one year than most of the people whining here have paid in a lifetime. He is a good and honest man. He doesn't hide behind the likes of David Axelrod, Robert Gibbs and Stephanie Cutter and other slimy political operatives who have no problem bending the truth or making up the truth. Romney doesn't need luck. One simply has to look at the true facts (no Joe Biden's erroneous "facts") to know our country is headed down the toilet under Obama, -- out-of-control debt, suffocating regulations that destroy small business, redistribution of wealth through increased taxes (since when is $250K a year rich ?) that will not make a small dent in the national debt, high unemployment numbers, crumbling foreign policy. We are turning towards a socialist, government-run society where we all will be forced to take handouts from our government slave keepers and wardens. I would encourage all of the liberal, left-leaning masses on here to really think about what's important. It is not gays and lesbians, abortion, racism or Big Bird. While those issues are important to some, they are essentially put out there to distract you from what is really going on and what's truly important. And that is the need top maintain American exceptionalism and not the systematic destruction of the constitution and out way of life.

so stupid, since when emptying the retirement funds of a company's work force and paying himself $millions in bonuses just before declaring bankruptcy is a smart way to run a business?

We already had a thief in the WH, for eight years who transformed a booming economy with budged surplus into a century worth failure with $T deficit, wars and collapsing economy yet got all his buddies to go home richer.

One more like that and communism is really going to be the leader .. with the GOP blessing.

No thank you dude ... a sound economic without wars but with investment in education , science and technology is a lot better.

I do not understand how Romney - a Morman Christian can feel comfortable about lying as long as it suits to profit himself. Maybe all he needs to do is to go for a confession after every speech or debate where he blatantly lies. Classic example is his leaked video. If the video on his fundraiser dinner had not leaked, then he would have not felt that what he said was completely wrong ! Integrity is doing the right things when no one is watching, not changing your tone to seem right for the person who is listening to you. It is a pity that this race is even close. Any right meaning person would reject Romney for his approach of not having a firm opinion on anything and for changing and deceiving the American public just to get elected. How pathetic ! May Lord God help us as always !

Time Magazine is so biased it is off the chart. This election is not about Mitt Romney it is about Obama. He said "I will cut the deficit in half". He has failed and added over a trillion dollars to the deficit four years in a row! He went against the wishes of the American people and gave us the monstrosity of Obama Care. He has divided America with his class warfare and he did it by design. Anyone who would vote for this loser should be ashamed of themselves.

@taptap77 Obamacare hasn't been fully implemented and what class warfare? Talk about a magazine being off the chart! You know what the saddest part is.. Obamacare is a health care plan that will provide health insurance for everyone! At the current state, healthcare is too expensive. If you did your research, you would find that Obamacare will save tax dollars. Currently people who are dying or diagnosed with cancer or other debilitating disease are UNINSURED. Who pays the cost? Tax dollars. When kids are sick and their families are maxed out of healthcare coverage, who pays the cost? When you have a person who is receiving regular medical checkup and has an illness detected early, the cost of medical services are decreased, thus creating a savings! Currently, healthcare providers are enjoying the luxury of high premiums, co-payments and high deductibles. Obamacare will make it easier for people to afford health care and to be able to find providers who will have more options and lesser out of pocket cost to the consumer. With all that said.. do your research and check out the information available to educate you on the issues at hand. BTW... the plan is similar to Romney's plan he had in MASS! The next time you look for car insurance think about the options that exist. You can do w/o a car but you CANNOT do w/o Health insurance!

Yes, like his showng off his muscles with a barbell and a backward baseball cap. Was this the GOP ploy to get him as a Redub Poster Boy? Pathetic! His wife should have called that one off limits but guess what? No matter what it takes, let's screw the American public for our few but very wealthy pals like Adelson the Vegas vulture. I am hoping those of you out here who think these people are going to turn things around better think again....

How can you tell a crook from a politician, the politician tries to hide his intentional lies and a crook does everything in plain view and has no conscience while a pliitician believes everyone believes what he is saying. Sad to say many people believe anything and everything you tell them, these type of people should lose their right to vote.

When I type in this space, my keys acts like someone is following my every stroke and if the are I pray to God for you disruction. Take that and worry about it. It could happen.

It would be great if we could have a digital record of each and ever persons annual income in the United States, no matter where it comes from or where it is stored, invested or hidden, whether it is in a blind trust or offshore. There are so many ways and places people hide their money to make themselves look poor or broke. We will never be able to make or cause everyone to live a straight life, but if we can keep the percent hight enough to keep peace between the crooks to the goody good people, it may be enough to maintain sanity in our world

This comment is pending approval and won't be displayed until it is approved.

"There is something disgraceful happening here, but it doesn’t involve a comment by an obscure embassy spokesman. It is Romney’s cynical, dishonest effort to take advantage of this national tragedy for his own political ends.

We HAVE to keep this smirking, lying, disgusting man out of the White House" - WP comment

Why is no one talking about the moral character of the two candidates? One owns up to his mistakes and apologizes for them, the other piles lies upon lies and arrogantly assumes that he can gain the public's trust/votes by just saying "Don't listen to what I saw, don't look at what I do, just trust me!" Seriously?! Where have you been for the past few months? Come out of the rock you've been hiding under and DO YOUR RESEARCH -- one of the candidates will do anything, lie, cheat to get your vote, while the other is trying to help and protect you so that you have an opportunity to succeed in this country that, it seems, up until recently, had a heart for the poor, elderly and disadvantaged. If Romney is the personification of what the teachings of Mormonism are, I am truly afraid what would happen if he were to become President.

Your times with David, Sam, Cokie, then George were de rigueur for any budding, young politico, back in the day. That was then, this is now. There is more at play than mere national guilt about slavery and all its chains that bond us to our current President. Much more. Women's rights, Gay's rights, the rights of the 47% to name a few. Our country has inextricably moved away from the era you grew up and came of age in: the era when we all Liked Ike, and Father Did Know Best. No George, today's rapidly changing and shrinking global society demands so much more that what Mitt Romney can deliver with his very narrow, and limited world view. Indeed, Romney is the very antithesis of what America needs now: a Global Leader. There is only one clear choice this election cycle. We must and we will elect the Most Qualified President for Our Times.

The GOP legislation awaiting Romney's signature isn't simply a return to the era of George W. Bush. From abortion rights and gun laws to tax giveaways and energy policy, it's far worse. Measures that have already sailed through the Republican House would roll back clean-air protections, gut both Medicare and Medicaid, lavish trillions in tax cuts on billionaires while raising taxes on the poor, and slash everything from college aid to veteran benefits. In fact, the tenets of Ryan Republicanism are so extreme that they even offend the pioneers of trickle-down economics. "Ryan takes out the ax and goes after programs for the poor – which is the last thing you ought to cut," says David Stockman, who served as Ronald Reagan's budget director. "It's ideology run amok."

Which is the more redistributionist of our two parties? In recent decades, as Republicans have devoted themselves with laser-like intensity to redistributing America’s wealth and income upward, the evidence suggests the answer is the GOP.

The most obvious way that Republicans have robbed from the middle to give to the rich has been the changes they wrought in the tax code — reducing income taxes for the wealthy in the Reagan and George W. Bush tax cuts, and cutting the tax rate on capital gains to less than half the rate on the top income of upper-middle-class employees.

The less widely understood way that Republicans have helped redistribute wealth to the already wealthy is by changing the rules. Markets don’t function without rules, and the rules that Republican policymakers have made since Ronald Reagan became president have consistently depressed the share of the nation’s income that the middle class can claim.

This is why I quit subscribing to Time. It has become total Left wing. To Quote Will Rogers: "There is only one issue that should be on everyones mind and that is 7 million people out of work". (He said that in the Great depression, Now there is 23 million out of work) A president with a NET Loss of JOBS in his term. It is time to grow the economy. =Romney. BTW Romney took no pay for the 2002 olympics. MASS Governor and I bet he won't take any pay as PRESIDENT Like to see a Liberal do that. JFK didn't take any pay but he wasn't a liberal he was a Democrat.

@Michael Lane Phillips No, not a net job loss. Mitt Romney very conveniently forgets that those disillusioned workers existed during the Bush administration too. BTW - coming from the governor who was #47 in the nation in job growth and left MA with 1.2 Billion in debt his criticisms are pretty, well - rich.

@DavidGraham Wow... if only we could put up bulletins to tell these people, Romney will leave a bigger mark on the economy. He is a business man who ran the MA down and went to the Olympics and was paid from Bain.

@AllenSmithee, you multiple postings all seem to have the same basic message that you could have stated far more concisely in one posting: "All of you who don't have my world view have lost your ability to think for yourselves. I know that because you do not agree iwth me, and I already know that I am right." How silly!

I realize that you are trying to be balanced by stating that even though Romney's gaffes are big, the Obama team also " has stepped in it more than once". However, the examples that you chose do not make that point: 1. the "you didn't build that yourself" was clearly a deliberate attempt to take something out of context to change the meaning, since Obama explicitly referred to infrastructure such as highways, rather than building a business; and 2. the "super-PAC ad effectively practically accusing Romney of manslaughter" was NOT done by the Obama campaign. I'm frustrated by the existence of super-PACs that can say anything while the campaigns keep their hands clean, but the fact is, that is exactly what is happening by independent supporters on both sides. Whether right or wrong, they are not products of the candidates' campaigns. In short, there is no comparison: Romney himself made the statements in question, and they were not taken out of context.

I wonder just who is going to be "lucky?" Bush was not a wonderful president. As far as "affirmative action" goes, Obama's done about as well as could be expected. He got a "Pass" due to his background everywhere growing up, and the American People, in their infinite wisdom have again given our "Affirmative Action In Chief" executive a "pass" for mediocre performance. He reminds me of Pot Smoking Employees I have managed in the past. Likable articulate incompetents.

But truthfully, I would NOT want to be the President who followed Obama's "Gentleman's C Affirmative Action Presidency." Obama has set major forces in motion that are going to do exactly what he said he wished to do -- drop us to 2d or even 3d world status as a country.

Maybe Romney will be lucky one more time, and let Choomer in Chief "follow" himself into disaster.

The article where it is stated that Romney's luck has run out is so ridiculous. If the writer believes that a person (Romney) who paid taxes on 13 Million in 2011 has run out of luck, the writer truly can't see the "forest for the trees". Just another stupid liberal press article.

Rush is just a radio talk show clown, in my opinion. So why do we even mention him. He has no clout! He is an IDIOT and always has been. And thinking about it, there is no such thing as a left or a right. We are all Americans and we all need to unite together as one but sad to say, there is a great deal of money to be made in pretending that there is a left and a right. The bottom line is, if Congress does not want to benefit the majority of people in America and only want to benefit THEIR interests only, then LEAVE CONGRESS. It's that simple and the idiot Rush can leave with them.

Romney didn't run out of luck. His political message ran out of steam. All presidential campaigns are difficult and challenging, his is not the exception. The bigger problem is that a) Mitt has no charisma. While everyone fell in love with Obama, the right's pick for this presidential run was a shotgun marriage: there was no love in the air b) Mitt really is in the 1% bubble. These people have contempt for the rest of us. They have been told through generations that we are in the world to help them become richer, that's it. c) He lies and he is not afraid to do it. From claiming that Romneycare is different from Obamacare, to saying that 47% of the American people are lazy and waiting for government handouts, his ignorance or his willingness to lie are just plain scary. How could we ever pick someone that is so far removed from the average American?

Actually, Mitt is in the top 10% of the 1% bubble. That is rarefied air, indeed.

There is simply no way he could understand the vast majority of Americans, nor does he wish to. He simply wants us to vote for him, without really telling us what we would need to want to do that. He thinks it's his to have.